Friday, August 11, 2017

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 11 August 2017 - 17 August 2017

I can only speak for myself, of course, but I find it weirdly satisfying when I skip a film at a festival and it shows up in regular theaters days or maybe weeks later. You get both the feelings of having managed your time effectively and and like the festival has stretched itself out a bit, and aren't those both kind of great?

Basically, this means I made a fair decision last week in not going for A Taxi Driver to close out Fantasia, because it opens at Boston Common this weekend. Folks really seemed to like it, and why not, with Song Kang-ho as an initially-apolitical cabbie who lands German journalist Thomas Kretschmann as a fare in 1980 and as a result winds up front and center at the Gwangju Uprising. Song is one of South Korea's best actors, and he's reuniting with Jang Hoon, director of Secret Reunion and Rough Cut. The same theater and distributor also opens Chinese romantic fantasy Once Upon a Time, featuring Yang Yang and Liu Yifei as celestial lovers who meet again after 300 years. Unusually, these days, it's playing in 3D only. On top of that, they're still keeping Wolf Warrior II around, bringing back up to a full slate of screenings every day.

For those more into Indian cinema, Apple Fresh Pond continues to show Jab Harry Met Sejal in subtitled Hindi, as well as Telugu films LIE, Nene Raju Nene Mantri, Jaya Janaki Nayaka, and Tamil film VIP 2, none of which indicate subtitles on Apple's site.

Also skipped at Fantasia but opening in Boston: Brigsby Bear, in which a young man raised in a bunker finds out that not only was he kidnapped as a small child, but his favorite television show was made exclusively for him, leading him to make a Brigsby feature to make some part of his childhood real. It plays at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, Kendall Square, and the Embassy.

The Coolidge also once again has 70mm screenings of Dunkirk through the weekend before reverting to DCP on Monday (the Somerville is still all 70, all the time, and West Newton is 35mm). Other special programs there this week include midnights of Nighthawks (Friday) and Sudden Death (Saturday), a Big Screen Classic showing of Werner Herzog's Aguirre, the Wrath of God on Monday, special anniversary screenings of Reservoir Dogs (pardon the borken links, I'm working on them) on Tuesday and Wednesday, and a "Rewind!" presentation of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, all but the last on 35mm film.

Kendall Square seems to have its renovation almost done, at least as far as auditoria are concerned, as it is now up to eight screens and can thus add some stuff. Sticking with the festival alumni, IFFBoston documentary Step is one of them, following a high-school step-dancing team trying to win a championship and give the members the tools they need to make it to college; it's also screening early and late at Boston Common.

They also pick up a couple more mainstream things: Wind River is a thriller starring Elizabeth Olsen as an FBI agent teaming up with game hunter Jeremy Renner to solve a murder on an Indian reservation (hopefully with a strong Native supporting cast); it also plays Boston Common. There's also a fairly wide opening for The Glass Castle, with Brie Larson, Sarah Snook, and others as the adult children of parents (played by Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts) who are somewhere between eccentric and dysfunctional. It's also at the Capitol, West Newton, Boston Common, Fenway, Assembly Row, Revere, and the SuperLux.

That's honestly more screens than some of the late-summer multiplex filler gets, although to be fair Annabelle: Creation (a sequel to a spin-off of The Conjuring) is getting pretty good reviews, with Lights Out director David F. Sandberg at the helm and reliable Aussies Anthony LaPaglia and Miranda Otto among the stars. That's at Apple Fresh Pond, the Embassy, Boston Common, Fenway (including RPX), Assembly Row, and Revere. Not getting particularly good reviews: The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature, a 3D animated thing which adds Jackie Chan to the voice cast as a mouse who helps the animal characters from the first prevent their green space from being turned into an amusement park. It's at the Capitol (2D only), Apple Fresh Pond (2D only), Boston Common, Fenway, Assembly Row, and Revere.

Revere also has Catastrophico, a comedy-adventure from the Dominican Republic about a spoiled movie star whose private plane crashes on an isolated island with the screw-ups who attempted to kidnap her. There's also a fair number of one- and two-offs this week: Mune: Guardian of the Moon is a cute-looking CGI adventure from France dubbed into English by GKids (Saturday at Fenway and Revere); TCM presents 50th anniversary shows of Bonnie and Clyde (Sunday & Wednesday at Fenway, Assembly Row, and Revere); there's a new DC animated feature in Batman and Harley Quinn (Monday at Fenway, Assembly Row, and Revere); Fairy Tale: Dragon Cry is the latest entry in the anime series (Monday & Wednesday at Fenway and Revere); and, finally, racing documentary McLaren comes from director Roger Donaldson, who is pretty good at that sort of thing (Thursday at Revere).

The Brattle Theatre's year-long "series of series" celebrating women in cinema bookends the week, starting with a weekend full of 1980s Comedies: Desperately Seeking Susan (35mm) and the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer play separately on Friday, there's a 35mm double feature of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Valley Girl on Saturday, and another double feature of Wayne's World (35mm) and Real Genius on Sunday. Robert Mitchum just gets one day this week, with an early-starting double feature of El Dorado & The Lusty Men (35mm) on Monday, so that Tuesday can be Trash Night. Wednesday's "Recent Raves" are both pretty fun, with My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea in the evening and then Free Fire at 9:15pm. The other repertory women in cinema series has another entry Thursday, with a double feature of Agnes Varda's Documenteur & Mur Murs.

The West Newton Cinema has two Boston Jewish Film Festival's presentations this week: A free preview of IFFBoston alum Menashe on Tuesday (only rush-line tickets available), and the final "Summer Cinematheque" screening, Moos, on Wednesday. At least, that's what the festival's site says; the theater's site shows special screenings on Wednesday and Thursday, so double-check.

It's still summer, so The Harvard Film Archive is chuggin on with its retrospectives. Ernst Lubitsch is represented by To Be or Not To Be (Friday 7pm), The Oyster Princess (Saturday 7pm with Robert Humphreville accompanying), The Merry Widow (Sunday 7pm), and The Wildcat (Monday 7pm with Andrew Simpson accompanying). Jean Renoir is the auteur of The Human Beast (Friday 9:15pm), "Baby's Laxative" (on video) & "A Day in the Country" (Saturday 9pm), and Le Bled (Sunday 4pm via DCP with Bertrand Laurence accompanying). All on 35mm unless noted.

The Museum of Fine Arts continues to screen Slack Bay (Friday), but also starts Feed Your Head: Films from 1967; that new repertory series features In the Heat of the Night (Friday), The Graduate (Saturday), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (Saturday/Sunday), The Dirty Dozen (Sunday), and a special outdoor "Sunset Cinema" screening of Cool Hand Luke on Thursday, with a DJ and Tie-Dye lessons.

Jeff Rapsis will visit the Aeronaut Brewery in Somerville to accompany Fritz Lang's Metropolis (in its most complete version) on Sunday.